Why we're working there

Tearfund has been working in Mozambique for almost thirty years. We have seen great change, but there are still many challenges for the average family in Mozambique.

Many are going without clean water, or travelling long distances to get it. A lack of education means most are unable to progress and improve their lives. To make matters worse, over 10% of the population has HIV. In some areas this figure can go as high as 15%.

church volunteers in Manica Province, Mozambique

At Tearfund we want to see the church stepping up to these challenges. We want to see them showing leadership and acting out of compassion for their neighbour. But the sad truth is that many churches stigmatise those with HIV. Instead of welcoming them in, they isolate them. Often they ignore poverty and pastors speak only about the spiritual side of faith.

Building without tools

Some churches want to help, but don’t know how. Like Pastor Sibanda, a church leader living in Mavende, a village known for its lack of water and its poverty. Pastor Sibanda felt powerless, like he couldn’t care for his flock.

The people of Mavende are used to depending on external donors. For example charities often come and distribute water. Although it was needed, the inability to help themselves made the community feel powerless too.

At Tearfund we are working with denominations and local churches across Mozambique. We are broadening that narrow gospel message that they have heard all their lives. We want everyone in the church to know that God doesn’t just care about our souls. He cares about how we treat our neighbours, whether we have clean water to drink, and a roof over our heads. In short - God is our loving father, who cares about every aspect of our lives!

The aims of the project

Umoja brings people together

Through our partners, Tearfund have led churches across the world to take hold of this truth. We use a process called Umoja. The word means togetherness in Swahili. Umoja started out as a small project in a couple of countries in East Africa, now it is a global movement. It has many names: Participatory Evaluation Process, Church and Community Mobilisation, Chet Tai Muay... but it always means the same thing, getting everyone in the community to lead and control their own development.

We have seen incredible change in Mozambique thanks to this work. Churches understand for the first time that they can bring change to communities through their work and their faith.

beginning with the Bible

The process begins with Bible studies. Trained facilitators do Bible Studies with the church members. They show them how much God loves each one us, no matter our circumstances. They also see, through passages like the Feeding of the Five Thousand, that God doesn’t leave us on our own. Instead he takes the little we offer him, and multiplies it beyond our understanding.

Kubatsirana, one of Tearfund’s partners, organised a meeting about Umoja with Pastor Sibanda's church. Through the studies, he says he understood God’s love for his people for the first time.

The studies focused on identifying and using their own resources. Pastor Sibanda used them to bring the message of Umoja to his church. Many of the believers took the word to their hearts and ran with it!

Because each church and community has different needs, Umoja has different results each time.

Making plans for the future

The church in Pombo repairs their borehole after going through Umoja training

In Mavende, Pastor Sibanda’s church pooled their money and bought 10 bags of cement. They are going to use it to rebuild their church, so they can move from a mud hut to a brick building.

Other churches have started breeding chickens and sharing the profits. Still more have repaired broken boreholes in their villages. Every church has a different story of how Umoja has brought life to their community.

But Umoja doesn’t just change the material lives of communities, it changes their spiritual lives. Like Pastor Sibanda, people learn that God has a vision for their life.

We used to be powerless, insignificant and despised by others because of where we were. Now even churches in the provincial capital are using us as an example.

We are no longer powerless, we have a vision and we are empowered to achieve it.

Project impact

Churches and communities in Mozambique are already being transformed as they hear what the Bible says about poverty for the first time. Help Kubatsirana, Iris ministries and our other partners in Mozambique to continue this life changing work.

For example, Kubatsirana wants to reach 6000 people this year. They aim to do this by:

Giving Umoja training to pastors through Bible studies

Teaching church members what the Bible says about looking after the sick and the orphans in their communities

Begin savings groups with vulnerable community members, helping them to work together to build up capital that they can use to start businesses

Teach farmers how to grow crops more effectively, increasing their yields and safeguarding their future in an age of climate change

£140 could pay for a pastor to go through the Umoja process with a trained facilitator. They will lead the pastor through a series of Bible studies, sharing with them our Biblical mandate to care for the vulnerable. The training will equip the church leader to share the message with their churches, and begin the process of transformation in their communities.

£330 could pay for the production of 50 Umoja manuals. An essential tool for equipping church leaders as they go through Umoja.

£585 could pay for livelihoods training for seven churches or groups within communities; teaching them how to increase yields, and diversify their farming.

£1000 would pay for seven church leaders to go through the Umoja process! Seven churches would be changed from the inside out, potentially making a difference to hundreds of lives.

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